Victor LaValle says

Fri 6 May 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

“Jeffrey Ford can pull off any kind of story he damn well pleases. I was sure of that before I even reached the end of this excellent collection. By the end he’d accomplished more than I would’ve imagined possible. A Brief History of Hell offers genuinely disturbing moments but it also veers into high comedy. There’s bits of myth and history, heartbreak and profound insights. I’ve been a fan of Ford’s for years. Every new book he publishes is a reason to celebrate.”
— Victor LaValle, author of The Ballad of Black Tom


The Series Finale!

Thu 5 May 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Did you read Laura Lippman’s review in the The New York Times Book Review of Lydia Millet’s new novel Sweet Lamb of Heaven?

It is Anna’s voice — cool, intelligent, passionate, contradictory — that makes this novel so affecting. I resisted it initially because I was overwhelmed by my sense of dislocation, my uncertainty about where we were headed. But how I missed it when it was gone, how I yearned for it to speak to me again.

Every one of Lydia’s books fascinates in a different way. I can’t wait to read this one. A sense of dislocation? Are you a human living on this planet? Check. (I realize that not everyone here will check that box.)

All of which to say we’ve been working with Lydia on The Bodies of the Ancients, the third and final novel of her Dissenters series (following The Fires Beneath the Sea and The Shimmers in The Night), and I’m happy to tell you it is about ready to go. We have the (matching!) cover in from Sharon McGill and it is off to the proofreader soon.

Have you ever wondered how sometimes it comes down to some kids against the big baddie? The Sykes kids — Cara and her two brothers, Max, older and only half present at best, and Jax, younger and maybe many kinds of genius — think about that all the time. But their Mom, who ahs many surprises of her own, is back home and she’s going to lay out what’s happening and why. If she has time before it all goes wrong.

Here’s the start:

It was June again on Cape Cod and the summer crowds were trickling back in. The beaches wouldn’t be mobbed till July, but families from Boston were already starting to flock to the roadside seafood restaurants. From behind the smudged and scratched-up pane of the school-bus window, Jax gazed at them. They were willing to waiting long periods of time for a table; some of the grownups looked at their phones and a few ran around after their kids, but most of them did nothing much other than stare out into space, baking in sun and breathing exhaust fumes. All for the sake of eating a fried fish sandwich.
Jax shook his head.
Maybe they were hollows, he said to himself. Maybe they were mindless zombies waiting to be consumed by flame.

It is going to be great to have the whole series out. Summer days on Cape Cod . . . but with more neanderthals and maybe even aliens!

The Fires Beneath the Sea cover The Shimmers in The Night cover - click to view full size The Bodies of the Ancients cover - click to view full size


Grendel

Wed 4 May 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

I’ve probably posted this before but who does not need 18 minute epics about Grendel?

In my early teen years in the West Coast of Scotland this song was just a myth that we kids in physics had read about but never heard. We loved 2 minutes 45 seconds as much as anyone. We loved challenge, we loved louder, faster, more complicated. Three minutes? Seven? Take us away for longer, please. Please.

As Grendel leaves his mossy home beneath the stagnant mere
Along the forest path he roams to Hrothgar’s hall so clear
He knows that victory is secured, his charm will testify
His claws will drip with mortal blood as moonbeams haunt the sky

Then you try to place the killer’s blade in my hand
You call for justice and distort the truth
Well I’ve had enough of all your pretty pretty speeches
Receive your punishment
Expose your throats to my righteous claws
And let the blood flow, and [let the blood flow], flow, flow, flow.


Or maybe not this week

Wed 4 May 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Surprise. Oops. More later on other things.


This Week

Mon 2 May 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

Will be interesting!


Who Are The People in the Castle?

Tue 12 Apr 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

The People in the Castle cover - click to view full sizeIt has been eight years since we published our first Joan Aiken title, The Serial Garden, and five (where does the time go?!) since the second, The Monkey’s Wedding, was released. Today is the publication day for our third Joan Aiken collection, The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories.

The book came about because Kelly and I had been talking to Joan’s daughter, Lizza Aiken, for a while about what fun it would be to make a selection of favorite stories from across the many, many collections Joan published — there are twenty-eight collections listed in the front matter of The People in the Castle, and that does not include some of her kid’s collections. (See all Joan’s books here.)

So Kelly and I went back and read as many of the collections as we could, which was obviously the most enjoyable part of the project and something I recommend replicating — you can usually find loads of her books at the library. Kelly has a better memory than me, so she would say something like How about story “x” from this book? or I love story “y” from that book and I’d go back and read it yet again and soon Kelly and I and Lizza came up with dream lists of stories we’d like to include. Of course the lists were too long and there was some horse trading (how about we drop these two stories but add this one? etc.) and in the end we had a list that satisfied everyone of twenty dark, funny, oddball, sometimes heart-wrenching stories. And now: they are a book!

We received finished copies of the book from the printer just in time to take with us to the AWP Conference in LA and we had the great pleasure of selling out of it very quickly — that cover has the magic pick-me-up quality that all publishers and authors everywhere are always searching for.

Kelly wrote an introduction to the collection:

“The particular joys of a Joan Aiken story have always been her capacity for this kind of brisk invention; her ear for dialect; her characters and their idiosyncrasies. Among the stories collected in this omnibus, are some of the very first Joan Aiken stories that I ever fell in love with, starting with the title story ‘The People in the Castle,’ which is a variation on the classic tales of fairy wives.”

The whole introduction — as well as the title story — is available for your reading pleasure on the Tin House blog and Kelly’s introduction segues beautifully into Lizza’s introduction, “The Power of Storytelling: Joan Aiken’s Strange Stories”:

“Joan Aiken once described a moment during a talk she was giving at a conference, when to illustrate a point she began to tell a story. At that moment, she said, the quality of attention in the room subtly changed. The audience, as if hypnotised, seemed to fall under her control.
‘Everyone was listening, to hear what was going to happen next.’
From her own experience, whether as an addictive reader from early childhood or as a storyteller herself, learning to amuse a younger brother growing up in a remote village, by the time she was writing for a living to support her family, she had learned a great respect for the power of stories.”

 Publishers Weekly gave the book a boxed, signed review: “There’s so much to love about this slender collection… The juxtaposition of mundane and magical…feels effortless and fresh. The language is simply splendid, so evocative, as though the stories were actually very dense poems. And it brilliantly showcases Aiken’s affectionate, humorous, deft portrayals of female characters… Aiken’s prose is extraordinary, impossible to do justice to in this small space. Her skill with the language of folk tales—specifically the oral storytelling native to the British Isles—is unparalleled.”

If you’d like a taste, try “The Cold Flame” which is available on Tor.com. This story makes me shiver and laugh every time.

Get your copy today: Small Beer · Weightless · Powell’s · IndieBound

Sale options:

  1. The People in the Castle (hc) + The Monkey’s Wedding (hc): $38
  2. The People in the Castle (hc) + The Monkey’s Wedding (hc) + The Serial Garden (pb): $50

The People in the Castle

Tue 12 Apr 2016 - Filed under: Books, Joan Aiken| Posted by: Gavin

April 2016: trade cloth · 256 pages · $24 · 9781618731128 | ebook · 9781618731135
November 2017: trade paper · $18 · 9781618731449

LeVar Burton reads Joan Aiken

Washington Post Notable Book

Read the introduction and title story on Tin House.

Here is the whisper in the night, the creak upstairs, that half-remembered ghost story that won’t let you sleep, the sound that raises gooseflesh, the wish you’d checked the lock on the door before it got really, really dark. Here are tales of suspense and the supernatural that will chill, amuse, and exhilarate.

“The particular joys of a Joan Aiken story have always been her capacity for this kind of brisk invention; her ear for dialect; her characters and their idiosyncrasies. Among the stories collected in this omnibus, are some of the very first Joan Aiken stories that I ever fell in love with, starting with the title story “The People in the Castle,” which is a variation on the classic tales of fairy wives.”
— Kelly Link, from her Introduction

Reviews

“Renowned fabulist and children’s author Joan Aiken had a long and prolific career, and it’s easy to see why her career endured across decades. Her stories have a timeless feel, whether screwball romantic comedies about ghosts, or tales of confounded faerie royalty.”
— Joel Cunningham, B&N, The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Collections and Anthologies of 2016

“Though the late fantastical British writer is best known for her children’s literature, this short story collection, edited by Aiken’s daughter Lizza and the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist Kelly Link, compiles tales of the surreal and supernatural suited for an adult audience. ‘A Leg Full of Rubies’ features a doctor whose own mortality is measured out by the grains of sand in an hourglass; ‘A Portable Elephant’ imagines a world where a live animal companion is required to buy passage across a border. ‘She was one of those writers who made me think you can be funny while telling a scary story,’ Link says. ‘You can still write really fresh contemporary takes on a classical ghost story.’”
—Ryan Porter, Toronto Star

“Renowned fabulist and children’s author Joan Aiken had a long and prolific career, and it’s easy to see why her career endured across decades. Her stories have a timeless feel, whether screwball romantic comedies about ghosts, or tales of confounded faerie royalty. If you’re an Aiken neophyte, this offers an amazing starting point, with stories running the gamut of fantasy, horror, comic fantasy, reimagined fairy tales, and legends. If you’ve experienced Aiken before, this is a selection of her best work. Either way, The People in the Castle is a great example of why her stories still hold up.”
Standout stories: “Sonata for Harp and Bicycle” “Some Music for the Wicked Countess”
— Barnes & Noble: 7 Essential New Sci-Fi & Fantasy Short Story Collections

“[A] haunting and wondrous book.”
— Emily Nordling, Tor.com

“For readers unfamiliar with Aiken’s work, its ice-and-stars clarity, naturalism, and unerring dialogue can be described as hypnotic. . . . Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories by M.R. James, Henry James, Nugent Barker and similar others, and her textured prose certainly evokes dread and the uncanny, but there is a third aspect that can only be called “glamour” or enchantment. Easy comparisons to Shirley Jackson and Bradbury have been made, and Aiken’s fabulism (at least in my opinion) is of equal caliber, but less claustrophobic.”
— See the Elephant

“If you’re looking for speculative short fiction of a decided literary bent, it’s hard to imagine a more satisfying source than this assembly of fantastical work by the peerless, prolific Joan Aiken (who died in 2004), assembled from across her storied career. The magical and the everyday collide in these short, evocative tales, which, in marvelously efficient, elegant prose, find unsettling strangeness lurking just around the corner from normal (the ghost of a puppy is trapped in an abandoned storage box, fairy queen squat in overgrown forests). A slim, seriously moving collection.”
— Joel Cunningham, B&N SF&F

“Joan Aiken has been a favorite of mine since my childhood reading of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, a book that has stuck with me for decades. This collection is wonderful, full of undiscovered gems, and important. Joan Aiken is a classic.”
— Susan Buchman, Stonington Free Library

“A welcome anthology of fantasy stories by a 20th-century master. The author of the beloved classic gothic for children The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Aiken (1924-2004) also wrote hundreds of works of popular fiction that spanned the genres, from fantasy to horror to historical fiction, including several Jane Austen sequels. Naturally the tone of her books and short stories varies with their content, but its main notes include sophisticated, spritely satire and the darker moods of literary fairy tales. Fans of Wolves will recognize the honorable orphans and cruel guardians who populate these tales. Typically the wicked meet with fitting fates and the innocent triumph, though for Aiken, a good death counts as a happy ending. She plays with the contrast between the eldritch and modern culture and technology: ghosts and dead kings out of legend who contact the living by telephone, a doctor who writes prescriptions for fairies, a fairy princess who’s fond of Westerns. Her metaphors and similes surprise and delight: “the August night was as gentle and full as a bucket of new milk”; “He was tall and pale, with a bony righteous face and eyes like faded olives”; across a field, “lambs [followed] their mothers like iron filings drawn to a magnet in regular converging lines.” Sprightly but brooding, with well-defined plots, twists, and punch lines, these stories deserve a place on the shelf with the fantasies of Saki (H.H. Munro), Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Susanna Clarke.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“There’s so much to love about this slender collection… The juxtaposition of mundane and magical…feels effortless and fresh. The language is simply splendid, so evocative, as though the stories were actually very dense poems. And it brilliantly showcases Aiken’s affectionate, humorous, deft portrayals of female characters… Aiken’s prose is extraordinary, impossible to do justice to in this small space. Her skill with the language of folk tales—specifically the oral storytelling native to the British Isles—is unparalleled… These stories both feel very 20th century and somehow timeless.”
— Publishers Weekly, Boxed, signed review by Rose Fox, Senior Reviews Editor

Table of Contents

Introduction by Kelly Link [read it on Tin House]
“The Power of Storytelling: Joan Aiken’s Strange Stories” by Lizza Aiken
Cold Flame
The Dark Streets of Kimball’s Green
Furry Night
Hope
Humblepuppy
The Lame King
The Last Specimen
A Leg Full of Rubies
Listening
Lob’s Girl
The Man Who Had Seen the Rope Trick
The Mysterious Barricades [read it on Lit Hub]
Old Fillikin
The People in the Castle [read it on Tin House]
A Portable Elephant
A Room Full of Leaves
She Was Afraid of Upstairs
Some Music for the Wicked Countess
Sonata for Harp and Bicycle
Watkyn, Comma

Joan Aiken (1924–2004) was born in Rye, Sussex, England, into a literary family: her father was the poet and writer Conrad Aiken and her siblings, the novelists Jane Aiken Hodge and John Aiken. After her parents’ divorce her mother married the popular English writer Martin Armstrong.
Aiken began writing at the age of five and her first collection of stories, All You’ve Ever Wanted was published in 1953. After her first husband’s death, Aiken supported her family by copyediting at Argosy and working at an advertising agency before turning to writing fiction full time. She went on to write for Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Women’s Own, and many other magazines.
She wrote over a hundred books and was perhaps best known for the dozen novels in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series. She received the Guardian and Edgar Allan Poe awards for fiction and in 1999 she was awarded an MBE.

Cover art “The Castle in the Air” by Joan Aikman, 1939. © Blue Lantern Studio/Corbis

Praise for Joan Aiken’s stories:

“Wildly inventive, darkly lyrical, and always surprising, this collection-like the mermaid in a bottle-is a literary treasure that should be cherished by fantastical fiction fans of all ages.” — Publisher’s Weekly

“Darkly whimsical stories…Aiken writes with surpassing spirit and alertness, her elegant restraint and dry wit never fail to leave their mark.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Each story has a surprise or twist. Many are ironic, go-figure pieces. They are just like real life, only more so. VERDICT: This book will appeal to readers of short stories and literary fiction. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal

“Aiken’s pastoral meadows and circus chaos, gothic grotesques and quirky romances… have a dream-like quality executed with a brevity and wit that is a testament to her skill as a story-teller.” — California Literary Review

“From a bottled mermaid brought home from a sailor’s adventures at sea to a vicar reincarnated as a malevolent cat, fantasy is combined with magic, myth and adventure to form weird, wonderful and immersive tales.” — For Book’s Sake

Best known for The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Joan Aiken (1924-2004) wrote over a hundred books and won the Guardian and Edgar Allan Poe awards. After her first husband’s death, she supported her family by copyediting at Argosy magazine and an advertising agency before turning to fiction. She went on to write for Vogue, Good Housekeeping, Vanity Fair, Argosy, Women’s Own, and many others. Visit her online at: www.joanaiken.com | The People in the Castle.


Who isn’t jealous of Jeff?

Fri 8 Apr 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, just sent us this!

“No one writes more beautifully about American nightmares and dreams. Every story is great but my favorites are “Word Doll,” “Rocket Ship to Hell,” “The Last Triangle,” and — especially — “The Prelate’s Commission.” Ford takes ideas that most writers would cling to and milk for three or four or five hundred pages and tosses them off left and right like they were nothing on his way to new worlds he seems to create out of thin air. If these stories weren’t so god damn enjoyable they’d make me jealous as hell.”


One for the Poets

Thu 7 Apr 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Tor.com just posted a Joan Aiken story from The People in the Castle. It is creepy, funny, fantastic, and as Tor says, “darkly lyrical.”  It is for poets, would-be poets, for writers, I suppose, of all sort, and writers’ families . . .

“Patrick was a poet, perhaps I should explain. Had been a poet. Or said he was. No one had ever seen his poetry because he steadfastly refused to let anyone read his work, though he insisted, with a quiet self-confidence not otherwise habitual to him, that the poems were very good indeed. In no other respect was he remarkable, but most people quite liked Patrick; he was a lanky, amusing creature with guileless blue eyes and a passion for singing sad, randy songs when he had had a drink or two. For some time I had been a little in love with Patrick. I was sorry to hear he was dead.”

 


“any kind of story he damn well pleases”

Mon 28 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

How’s your Monday? Ours is pretty great, thanks to Victor LaValle — whom you may have heard on NPR recently discussing his latest book, The Ballad of Black Tom — who just read Jeffrey Ford’s A Natural History of Hell and sent us this:

“Jeffrey Ford can pull off any kind of story he damn well pleases. I was sure of that before I even reached the end of this excellent collection. By the end he’d accomplished more than I would’ve imagined possible. A Natural History of Hell offers genuinely disturbing moments but it also veers into high comedy. There’s bits of myth and history, heartbreak and profound insights. I’ve been a fan of Ford’s for years. Every new book he publishes is a reason to celebrate.”

Jeffrey Alan Love, whose art graces the cover had some good news, too:


It’s not easy

Wed 23 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

being a Small Press in 2016 so we have decided to decamp to the future. See you tomorrow.


Starred Review for The Winged Histories!

Tue 22 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , | Posted by: Gavin

We’re very happy to see that Sofia Samatar’s The Winged Histories received a starred review today from Shelf Awareness:

“Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. . . . The Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown.”

Sofia also has a new story today in The Revelator:

Cities of Emerald, Deserts of Gold


SBP @AWP2016

Tue 22 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , , | Posted by: Gavin

Besides our groovy (sorry) reading on Wed. March 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Last Bookstore [with Kelly Link (Get in Trouble), Maureen F. McHugh (After the Apocalypse), Ayize Jama-Everett (The Entropy of Bones), and Sofia Samatar (The Winged Histories)] we have a few other things we’d like to share:

First: we have a table, #1331, in the huge bookfair. Come search us out!
Second: panels and stuff!

Thursday, March 31
11:00 am to 11:30 am
Table 1331, Ayize Jama-Everett (The Entropy of Bones) signing

3:00 pm to 4:15 pm
Room 515 A, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
R265. Smooth Criminals: What’s at Stake When We Break the Rules? (Juan Martinez, Susan Hubbard, Robin Rozanski, Julie Iromuanya) What writing rule do you hate? Love? We all break a few: We switch POV halfway through a story, we use too many exclamation marks, we don’t write what we know, or we use the wrong form, the wrong genre. The panelists balance the costs and benefits of these misdemeanors. They explore how rules hinge on cultural, ethnic, and social backgrounds. They provide rule-breaking exercises that have helped generate exciting material and talk about how rule-breaking has helped them publish and teach.

Friday, April 1
10:30 am to 11:45 am
Room 513, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
F161. Small Beer Press: 15th Anniversary Reading. (Sofia Samatar, Ayize Jama-Everett, Maureen F. McHugh, Juan Martinez) Fifteen years after Small Beer Press was founded to publish works that cross genre definitions, traditional bookstore shelving options, and academic course descriptions, four authors from different parts of the USA who now all live in California read from their books and then discuss the spaces their books were published into with Small Beer Press publisher and cofounder Gavin J. Grant.

2:00 pm to 2:30 pm
Table 1331, Sofia Samatar (The Winged Histories) signing

4:30 pm to 5:45 pm
Concourse Hall, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
F271. Kelly Link, Emily St. John Mandel, and Ruth Ozeki: A Reading and Conversation, Sponsored by Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau. (Emily St. John Mandel,  Ruth Ozeki,  Kelly Link) This event brings together three brilliant contemporary female writers—Kelly Link, Emily St. John Mandel, and Ruth Ozeki—to read and discuss their craft and experiences as genre-bending authors. Kelly Link is the recipient of an NEA grant and is the author of Get in Trouble. Emily St. John Mandel is the author of Station Eleven, a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award. Ruth Ozeki is the author of A Tale for the Time Being, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

Saturday, April 2
10:00am to 10:30am
Table 1331, Kelly Link (Get in Trouble) signing

11:00am to 11:30am
Table 1331, Maureen F. McHugh (After the Apocalypse)

12:00 pm to 1:15 pm
AWP Bookfair Stage, LA Convention Center, Exhibit Hall Level One
S171. In the Realms of the Real and the Unreal. (Katharine Beutner, Sofia Samatar, Carmen Machado, Alice Sola Kim, Kelly Link) This panel explores genres of fiction that juxtapose the real and the unreal in experimental ways: historical fiction, literary fantasy/science fiction, weird fiction, and satire. Where do we draw the line between a secondary world and a distorted reflection of our own world’s beauty, violence, and diversity? Can we discern a poetics of the unreal in contemporary fiction? How have the continual debates over generic boundaries—and/or their irrelevance—affected the ways contemporary writers work?


SBP @The Last Bookstore in LA

Thu 17 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , , , | Posted by: Gavin

If you’re in LA — or going there for the AWP conference — I hope you’ll join us on Wednesday, March 30, at 7:30 pm at the Last Bookstore for a reading/party with beer, snackity snacks, and most importantly, excellent short readings from four fabulous authors!

Ayize Jama-Everett, The Entropy of Bones
“. . . consistently resists easy categorization. . . . by setting the book in a weird, if recognizable, Bay Area, ­Jama-Everett captures something about the way it feels to live so close to so much money and yet so far; he traces the differences between postindustrial East Bay towns, the gray melancholy of an older city, the particular feeling of struggling while surrounded by otherworldly wealth. If the book veers among different  approaches . . .  there’s nevertheless a vitality to the voice and a weirdness that, while not always controlled or intentional, is highly appealing for just that reason.”— Charles Yu, New York Times Book Review

Kelly Link, Get in Trouble: Stories
Time Magazine Top 10 Fiction of 2015 · NPR 2015 Great Reads · Slate Laura Miller’s 10 Favorite Books of 2015 · Buzzfeed Books We Loved in 2015 · Book Riot Best of 2015 · io9: Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2015 · Flavorwire: Best Fiction of 2015 · San Francisco Chronicle Best of 2015 · Electric Lit Best Story Collections of 2015 · Washington Post Notable Books of the Year · Kirkus Best Books of the Year · Toronto Star Top 5 Fiction of 2015 · New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice · Los Angeles Times bestseller · Locus Recommended Reading

Maureen F. McHugh, After the Apocalypse: Stories
Shirley Jackson Award winner · Publishers Weekly Top 10 Books of the Year · NPR Best Books of the Year · io9 Best SF&F Books of the Year · Tiptree Award Honor List · Philip K. Dick Award finalist · Story Prize Notable Book

Sofia Samatar, The Winged Histories
“A highly recommended indulgence.” — N. K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review · “An imaginative, poetic, and dark meditation on how history gets made.” — Hello Beautiful · “Samatar has created characters that you will carry around with you for weeks (months?). If you love strong voices, world-building, and books that tell hard truths with beautiful language, these are for you.” — Jenn Northington, Book Riot · “Samatar’s use of poetic yet unpretentious language makes her one of the best writers of today. Reading her books is like sipping very rich mulled wine. The worldbuilding and characterization is exquisite. This suspenseful and elegiac book discusses the lives of fictional women in a fantasy setting who fear their histories will be lost in a way that is only too resonant with the hidden histories of women in our own age.” — Romantic Times Book Reviews (4.5/5 stars, Top Pick)

Get in Trouble 


The Winged Histories Publication Day

Tue 15 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

The Winged HistoriesYay! No matter what you may have heard on the radio, read on the internets, or seen scratched on the sidewalk outside your favorite bookshop, today is the official publication day for Sofia Samatar‘s second novel The Winged Histories and here at last it is.

What is it? It is beautiful, so said Jenn Northington yesterday on Tor.com and N. K. Jemisin recently in the New York Times Book Review and us, every day!

And here for your enjoyment, a review of the book by Marion Deeds on Fantastic Literature who enjoys writing down who the book might be fore and says “If you love stories but distrust them, if you love language and can also see how it is used as a tool or a weapon in the maintenance of status quo, then read The Winged Histories” and then Mahvesh Murad interviews Sofia about “writing short stories, teaching, translations and making life a giant book club” for episode 47 of the Midnight in Karachi podcast.

All in all, it is a great day for all of us here, the day we publish The Winged Histories.


The Winged Histories

Tue 15 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Books| Posted by: Gavin

March 15, 2016 · trade cloth · 337 pages · $24 · 9781618731142 | ebook · 9781618731159
April 11, 2017 · trade paperback · 337 pages · $16 · 9781618731371

Best Books of the year: NPR
Locus Award finalist
Rights sold: Poland (MAG); India (Juggernaut Books); and Japan (Tokyo Sogensha).

NPR, Your 50 Favorite Sci-Fi And Fantasy Books Of The Past Decade: The Olondria Series

“‘Have you ever seen something so beautiful that you’d be content to just sit and watch the light around it change for a whole day because every passing moment reveals even more unbearable loveliness and transforms you in ways you can’t articulate?’ asks judge Amal El-Mohtar. ‘You will if you read these books.'”

Using the sword, pen, body, and voice, four women confront a rebellion and the older, stranger threat behind it.

Four women—a soldier, a scholar, a poet, and a socialite—are caught up on opposing sides of a violent rebellion. As war erupts and their loyalties and agendas and ideologies come into conflict, the four fear their lives may pass unrecorded. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.

Here is the much-anticipated companion novel to Sofia Samatar’s World Fantasy Award-winning debut, A Stranger in Olondria. The Winged Histories is the saga of an empire—and a family: their friendships, their enduring love, their arcane and deadly secrets. Samatar asks who makes history, who endures it, and how the turbulence of historical change sweeps over every aspect of a life and over everyone, no matter whether or not they choose to seek it out.

Interviews

David Naimon and Sofia Samatar chat about The Winged Histories on the Between the Covers podcast.
“Why Read Fantasy?” interview on Bookslinger by Cassidy Foust
Los Angeles Times interview by Lilliam Rivera.
Mahvesh Murad interviews Sofia for the Midnight in Karachi podcast.
Weird Sister interview by Katie Heng.
Podcast interview: SF Signal.

More

“On the 13 Words That Made Me a Writer” on LitHub.
Kirkus Feature, “Who Tells Your Story” by Ana Grilo: “A hopeful and beautiful story of tragedy and war.”
Read the first chapter on Tor.com.
28 Books to Read in 2016: The Week.

Reviews

“It is dazzlingly beautiful and as close to perfect as a reader can hope. . . . The Winged Histories is one of the finest fantasy novels of 2016, or any year.”
— Jane Franklin, Rain Taxi

“Samatar’s second novel’s lyrical and gorgeous prose explores the lives of four very different women caught up in the brutality of war.”
— Recommendations from the Booksmith in the San Francisco Chronicle

“Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. . . . The Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown.”
— Shelf Awareness (starred review)

“All of it is harrowing — and written in such heart-stoppingly beautiful language there’s a good chance readers will ignore the plot and spend a few hours just chewing on the words, slowly, to draw out the flavor. Then they’ll need to read it again. Fortunately, this is a short book; also fortunately, there’s a lot of novel packed into relatively few pages. A highly recommended indulgence.”
— N. K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review

“The lush syntax is often so spellbinding that entire paragraphs demand an immediate re-read, and the plot map follows tributaries as often as the river itself. Rhythmically, it varies between traditional fantasy fiction and a sort of poetic prose. Samatar’s women are realistically flawed, and the storylines have intentionally frayed edges and visible brutalities and, of course, monsters and magic. Based on just a first read of this lyrical work, Samatar’s fascination with language and the human condition is very apparent, and perhaps even contagious. Excerpts of in-world books and songs, plus an intricate family tree and glossary, help transform this fantasy into a world so real that when the book ends, Olondria becomes a red balloon, ever-present but just out of reach. For every moment of power and adrenaline, an equally crushing or lovely or strange occurrence is offered. But then, such is war, and life.”
— Jessi Cape, Austin Chronicle

“Throughout it all, Samatar ponders weighty questions. “What is the difference between a king and a monster?” Tialon asks; “What is music?” wonders Seren. But Histories isn’t a book about easy answers, any more than it’s driven by plot. It’s circuitous and hypnotic, told through flashbacks, meditations, and stories within stories. Tialon pores over a history book written by her aunt; Seren sifts through the traditional songs she sings. Rather than being distractions, these nested texts ring with lyricism.
“At the same time, they underscore one of Samatar’s profound themes: how words make us, every bit as much as we make them. At one point Seren,  waxing philosophical about the distinction between sorcery and literacy in Olondria, says that writing is “like riding a horse to go somewhere instead of walking. You go to the same place, but you can carry more.” Accordingly, Samatar carries a great deal with her in the pages of The Winged Histories: beauty, wonder, and a soaring paean to the power of story.”
— Jason Heller, NPR

“Told by four different women, it is a story of war; not epic battles of good and evil, but the attempt to make things right and the realities of violence wielded by one human against another, by one group against another. It’s about the aftermath of war, in which some things are better but others are worse. Above all, it’s a story about love—the terrible love that tears lives apart. Doomed love; impossible love; love that requires a rewriting of the rules, be it for a country, a person, or a story.”
— Jenn Northington, Tor.com

“An imaginative, poetic, and dark meditation on how history gets made.”
— Hello Beautiful

“This book. This perfect book.” — Amal El-Mohtar, Lightspeed

“If you think Samatar has the ear and soul of a poet, you will love this book. . . . If One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende, are favorites of yours, you will love how Samatar shows us a rebellion and a civil war through the lens of a central family. Each of the viewpoint characters (there are four main ones) brings not only a different perspective, but new information about a prince’s attempted coup and a warrior’s attempt to free her nation… or the rise of the Priest of the Stone. . . . If you love stories but distrust them, if you love language and can also see how it is used as a tool or a weapon in the maintenance of status quo, then read The Winged Histories.”
— Marion Deeds, Fantasy Literature

“I wouldn’t normally taunt you with a book you can’t have for two months, but this time is different, ok? Because the book in question is a sequel, which means you have time to go and read A Stranger in Olondria, and then be ready for Winged Histories in all its glorious glory. In Olondria, Samatar built us a beautiful fantasy world, full of diverse peoples and customs, gorgeous landscapes, and a dark undercurrent. Our guide to Olondria, Jevick, found himself caught up in the midst of a troubled political situation, in a country on the brink of war. In Winged Histories, we see that war from four perspectives. And, god, what perspectives they are. Samatar has created characters that you will carry around with you for weeks (months?). If you love strong voices, world-building, and books that tell hard truths with beautiful language, these are for you.” — Jenn Northington, Book Riot

“Samatar’s use of poetic yet unpretentious language makes her one of the best writers of today. Reading her books is like sipping very rich mulled wine. The worldbuilding and characterization is exquisite. This suspenseful and elegiac book discusses the lives of fictional women in a fantasy setting who fear their histories will be lost in a way that is only too resonant with the hidden histories of women in our own age.” — Romantic Times Book Reviews (4.5/5 stars, Top Pick)

“The Winged Histories is a saga, all right, focusing largely on a single family, but its prose, while characteristically graceful and evocative and often stunningly beautiful.”
— Gary K. Wolfe, Locus

“It is obviously not coincidental that Samatar’s narrators are all women: The Winged Histories addresses that which is so often elided in conventional fantasy novels – the absence of women, or at best, the limited roles available to women. If Lord of the Rings shows us only privileged women, able to disguise themselves in order to fight, or else to remain sequestered from the grubbiness of war, Samatar’s women have to deal with the effects of war head on, because in their various ways they are all involved. While it may be true that Tavis presumes on her status in order to learn to fight, she is nonetheless part of a sustained military campaign, and all that entails. Likewise, she and Siski have always been aware of their significance as nieces of Olondria’s ruler, the Telkan, thanks to their aunt, Mardith, who seeks to gain power through matchmaking. However, through Seren and Tialon we see women who are nominally reliant on men in order to survive, and the ways in which they negotiate survival in a world that is rapidly changing. . . . And still there is more to be said about The Winged Histories and its predecessor. Thoughts and notes piled up as I read on, and I reached the end wanting nothing so much as to return to the beginning and start all over again. Samatar’s work really benefits from rereading, which is more than can be said for a lot of contemporary novels. This is a very satisfying novel to read, challenging and troubling too, as the very best fiction ought to be.”
— Maureen Kincaid Speller, Interzone, 265

“Tav, a teenage girl from the House of Telkan, ‘the most exalted bloodline’ in Olondria, has run away to become a swordmaiden in the army. As she fights alongside the men, she realizes the war is a distraction while the ruling branch of her family subjugates her native kingdom, Kestenya, and surrounding territories. . . . Samatar is a writer of uncommon beauty, and she takes a genre that has historically tended to focus on the heroic exploits of men and shows how those exploits involve and affect women. This novel teaches us the importance of giving voice to experience and bearing witness; as one character says, writing is less about words than ‘how we are written into one another. How this is history.’ A lyrical immersion into a finely wrought world.” — Kirkus Reviews

“In 2013 Sophia Samatar’s A Stranger in Olondria introduced us to new world described with such poetic verve that is has since become a living classic of fantasy fiction. With her new book, The Winged Histories, Samatar’s great storytelling talent and wickedly beautiful prose takes us to an Olondria wracked by war. Despite this bloody and turbulent time, four women will have their voices resonate above the fray. Their stories and the stories they tell themselves are vivid portraits of women willing to challenge the conventional and fighting in myriad ways to be remembered. Samatar’s creative use of a section titled “A Common History” unites the voices of these women to unrelated yet connected people or events which adds an emotive depth to the story. She also includes a richly imagined mythology that is shared by the characters, a scintillating vein of ideas bringing such beauty and darkness, but that helps us understand unearthly changes need to be embraced, despite our fears, in order to be truly free.”
— Raul M. Chapa, BookPeople, Austin, TX

“Can I smear tears on a piece of paper and call that a review? This was GORGEOUS and emotionally bruising and so so wonderful and engaging and many other perfect words. There is so much world-building, a fascinating mythology, and beautiful language (I’m trying not to yell about Seren’s little language lessons). There are amazing epigraphs, which I’m always a huge fan of. Samatar winds the stories of four very different women through a monumental period of Olondrian history, and it’s one of the best reading experiences I’ve had in the last year. Poetic and bloody, lovely and dark, this is a book to be SAVORED, and I will be re-reading it again soon, at a much slower pace.”
— Allison Senecal, Book Shop of Fort Collins

“Sofia Samatar’s work is a revelation. Her prose has only become richer and more assured between her debut novel and this follow-up. The Winged Histories gives the stories of four women whose stories are linked by the events that shape them (and that they help to shape). The contexts of the complicated class and national histories the inform these women is described in such clear detail that I feel that I know them all, their histories and their inner realities. Amazing, incredible, lush, emotionally rich, politically fascinating, this is one of the most satisfying novels I have picked up in ages. It begs the reader in each moment to consider how histories are created, and the costs and inequalities behind how we all must fight to be a part of history, however it gets written.”
— Gretchen Treu, A Room of One’s Own, Madison, WI

“Pleasantly startling and unexpected. Her prose is by turns sharp and sumptuous, and always perfectly controlled. Samatar’s writing strongly recalls Guy Gavriel Kay’s fantasy, which reads like historical fiction, but there are strains here too of Jane Austen and something wilder.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Advance Readers

“A nuanced and subtle tale of war, love, duty, family, and honor. It’s like polyphony—a chorus of voices singing different melodies, sometimes at odds, but ultimately harmonious. And moving. And exciting. Have I mentioned exciting?”
— Delia Sherman

“Sparse and magical, beautiful and terrible; The Winged Histories is a story spun out of stories and the lives of fierce women, each a warrior in her own right.”
— Nalo Hopkinson

“A brightly moving narrative that crystallizes into scenes as delicate, hard, and changing as ice, that rises up to meet four women in the midst of warfare, and the most devastating kinds of devotion and rebellion. It is astonishing what The Winged Histories does with language, what it does as a novel.”
— Amina Cain, author of Creature

About the Author

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, the short story collection, Tender, and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. She is the recipient of the William L. Crawford Award, the Astounding Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the World Fantasy Award. She teaches Arabic literature, African literature, and speculative fiction at James Madison University.

Excerpt

“But those on the border write no histories. Their book is memory. Their element is air.”
— Karanis of Loi, The Eighth Meditation

Book One: The History of the Sword
Everywhere the sound of wings.

1. Secrets

The swordmaiden will discover the secrets of men. She will discover that men at war are not as men at peace. She will discover an unforeseen comradeship. Take care: this comradeship is a Dueman shield. It does not extend all the way to the ground.
The swordmaiden will discover her secret forebears. Maris the Crooked fought for Keliathu in the War of the Tongues. Wounded and left with the high-piled dead, she was rescued before the pyre was lit by the man who most despised her: her second lieutenant, Farod. “Farod,” she said to him, “what have you done?” And he answered: “Do not thank me, General. I am like a man who has preserved his enemy’s coin; and I am like a man who, having seen his enemy safely submerged among crocodiles, has drawn him out again.”
The swordmaiden will discover that her forebears are few. There was Maris, and there was Galaron of Nain, and there was the False Countess of Kestenya.
The swordmaiden will hear rumors of others, but she will not find them.
Her greatest battle will be waged against oblivion.
— Ferelanyi of Bream, The Swordmaiden’s Codex

I became a swordmaiden in the Brogyar war, among the mountains.
I was fifteen when I went there to school. Fifteen, and a runaway. The old coach swayed, the pink light of the lantern bounced against the mountainside, and I sat with my hands clenched in embroidered gloves. My furs were cold. I made Fulmia stop the carriage at the officers’ hall, so that I could give them my letter. This hall had once been a temple of Avalei; now fires burned among its smoke-stained pillars, and battered shields lay stacked up in the porch. Nirai stood in the doorway and cried in the wind: “What news from the Valley?” Then he peered closer and started. “It’s all right,” I said. “I have a letter from the Duke.” Inside they were all there, Uncle Gishas, Prince Ruaf, and others. They passed my letter around the great stone table.

Praise for Sofia Samatar’s debut novel, A Stranger in Olondria:

“It’s the rare first novel with no unnecessary parts – and, in terms of its elegant language, its sharp insights into believable characters, and its almost revelatory focus on the value and meaning of language and story, it’s the most impressive and intelligent first novel I expect to see this year, or perhaps for a while longer.”
—Locus

“The excerpt from Sofia Samatar’s compelling novel A Stranger in Olondria should be enough to make you run out and buy the book. Just don’t overlook her short “Selkie Stories Are for Losers,” the best story about loss and love and selkies I’ve read in years.”
— K. Tempest Bradford, NPR

“Sofia Samatar’s debut fantasy A Stranger in Olondria is gloriously vivid and rich.”
— Adam Roberts, The Guardian, Best Science Fiction Books of 2013

“Books can limit our experiences and reinforce the structures of empire. They can also transport us outside existing structures. The same book may do both in different ways or for different people. Samatar has written a novel that captures the ecstasy and pain of encountering the world through books, showing us bits and pieces of our contemporary world while also transporting us into a new one.”
— Bookslut

“The novel is full of subtle ideas and questions that never quite get answered. It is those dichotomies that lie at the heart of this novel, such as what is superstition and what is magic? How much do class and other prejudices affect how we view someone’s religion? Jevick often believes himself above such things, as does the current religious regime of Olondria, but in a way both are haunted until they believe. . . . Samatar gives us no easy answers and there are no villains in the book — simply ordinary people doing what they believe is right.
— io9.com

“As you might expect (or hope) from a novel that is in part about the painting of worlds with words, the prose in Stranger is glorious. Whether through imaginative individual word choices—my favourite here being the merchants rendered “delirious” by their own spices . . . Samatar is adept at evoking place, mood, and the impact of what is seen on the one describing it for us.”
­— Strange Horizons

“Vivid, gripping, and shot through with a love of books.”—Graham Sleight, Locus

“With characteristic wit, poise, and eloquence, Samatar delivers a story about our vulnerability to language and literature, and the simultaneous experience of power and surrender inherent in the acts of writing and reading.”—Amal El-Mohtar, Tor.com

“Samatar’s sensual descriptions create a rich, strange landscape, allowing a lavish adventure to unfold that is haunting and unforgettable.”—Library Journal (*starred review*)

“Sofia Samatar has an expansive imagination, a poetic and elegant style, and she writes stories so rich, with characters so full of life, they haunt you long after the story ends. A real pleasure.”
—Chris Abani, author of GraceLand and The Virgin of Flames

“A book about the love of books. Her sentences are intoxicating and one can easily be lost in their intricacy…. Samatar’s beautifully written book is one that will be treasured by book lovers everywhere.”
—Raul M. Chapa, BookPeople, Austin, TX

“Thoroughly engaging and thoroughly original. A story of ghosts and books, treachery and mystery, ingeniously conceived and beautifully written. One of the best fantasy novels I’ve read in recent years.”—Jeffrey Ford, author of The Girl in the Glass

“Mesmerizing—a sustained and dreamy enchantment. A Stranger in Olondria reminds both Samatar’s characters and her readers of the way stories make us long for far-away, even imaginary, places and how they also bring us home again.”
—Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club

“Let the world take note of this dazzling and accomplished fantasy. Sofia Samatar’s debut novel is both exhilarating epic adventure and loving invocation of what it means to live through story, poetry, language. She writes like the heir of Ursula K. Le Guin and Gene Wolfe.”
—Kelly Link, author of Get in Trouble

“Imagine an inlaid cabinet, its drawers within drawers filled with spices, roses, amulets, bright cities, bones, and shadows. Sofia Samatar is a merchant of wonders, and her A Stranger in Olondria is a bookshop of dreams.”
—Greer Gilman, author of Cloud & Ashes

Cover illustration by Kathleen Jennings.

Previously

Mar. 30, 7:30 p.m., The Last Bookstore, 453 S Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013
Apr. 1, 10:30 a.m., AWP, Small Beer Press: 15th Anniversary Reading, F161, Room 513, Meeting Room Level, LA Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA (Sofia Samatar,  Ayize Jama-Everett,  Gavin J. Grant,  Juan Martinez,  Maureen F. McHugh)
Apr. 2, 12:00 p.m. AWP, “In the Realms of the Real and the Unreal,” S171. (Katharine Beutner,  Sofia Samatar,  Carmen Machado,  Alice Sola Kim,  Kelly Link)


Greer Gilman’s Shirley Jackson Award Acceptance Speech

Thu 10 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Cry Murder! in a Small Voice cover - click to view full sizeOn Sunday, July 13, 2014, Greer Gilman received the Shirley Jackson Award for her chapbook Cry Murder! in a Small Voice at Readercon in Boston.

In celebration of the occasion of sending Cry Murder! back to the printer for a third run we are pleased to reprint Greer’s acceptance speech:

Thank you.

Guess I’m scary.  Who knew ?

I was monster angry when I wrote this.  That — film Anonymous had just come out, and the media was full of its promoters, saying that the glover’s son Shakespeare wasn’t privileged enough to be a writer.  Here:

“Whoever Shakespeare was, he wasn’t a little ordinary yeoman . . . I’m quite certain that he was a quite exceptional aristocrat who had to keep totally quiet and needed Shakespeare as cover.”

“A little ordinary yeoman.”  My little Haitian dressmaker.  My houseboy.

And that? was Vanessa Redgrave of the Workers Revolutionary Party.  As my friend Cathy Butler said, “Scratch a socialist, find an extra from Downton Abbey.”

Shirley Jackson would have laughed.

Look around this room, Vanessa.  We’re all extraordinary.

All of us write.

The Anonymian cult also believes that writers only write about their own quite exceptional lives.  One must be a prince to write Hamlet, a vampire to write Dracula —

Let’s stake that conceit, shall we?

I myself have been a ghost, now and then, a whole pantheon of vengeful goddesses, a murder of crows—and I love that I get to be Ben Jonson, in all his fury, his fatness, and his honesty.  I love playing in his world of players, writing poetry and taking names.


Tomorrow

Mon 7 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

We start posting pages for our books coming out at the end of the year. Woo!


Lining up the reprints

Thu 3 Mar 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Cry Murder! in a Small Voice coveris what I’ve been doing recently. And the first one to go to the printer is Greer Gilman’s first Ben Jonson (“Detective!“) chapbook Cry Murder! in a Small Voice. Despite or because of that amazing Elizabethan voice, this is the little book that could. We are out of stock for a couple of days, but, hey, the ebook is always available!


Signing sheets

Mon 29 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Jacob MacMurray is locking up the design of John Crowley’s The Chemical Wedding one piece at a time. The Kickstarter approacheth!


The Hell you say?

Thu 25 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin

A Natural History of Hell cover - click to view full sizeThey call up. They email. They line up and they tell us about Jeff Ford’s forthcoming collection. And, oh, we are in agreement. We are happy. If Jeff Ford is going to write it, we are going to this particular hell in a silver shiny handbasket.

“Jeffrey Ford is a beautifully disorienting writer, a poet in an unclassifiable genre—his own.”
—Joyce Carol Oates

“Jeffrey Ford is a true heir to his teacher, John Gardner—not only in his ability to inhabit an astonishing range of styles and different worlds with jaw-dropping verisimilitude, but also in the great-hearted compassion and depth that he brings to his characters. I have long admired and learned from his work, and I’m grateful to have these beautiful stories to contemplate.”
—Dan Chaon

“Combining legend and suspense, terror and darkly comic social commentary, Jeffrey Ford brings our greatest fears to life in this terrific collection. A Natural History of Hell is jammed with stories I wish I had written.”
—Kit Reed

“Delightful, terrifying, thoughtful and incredibly well written. Jeffrey Ford’s style is eloquent and accessible, literary and engaging. His stories have an engrossing, almost mythological feel to them, strengthened by well-placed descriptions, impeccable pacing and Ford’s rare talent for delivering a satisfying ending.” — Catherine Grant, Huffington Post

ETA! A starred review from Publishers Weekly! — “seamlessly blends subtle psychological horror with a mix of literary history, folklore, and SF in this collection of 13 short stories, all focused on the struggles, sorrows, and terrors of daily life.”

Cover illustration by Jeffrey Alan Love.


Hello, Ravenna Third Place in Seattle!

Wed 24 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Just got wind of two, wait, three, highly relevant and interesting staff picks at by one great bookseller at Ravenna Third Place Books in Seattle. Two out of three books here may not surprise you, the third one may?

It’s pretty great as a publisher on (near!) the east coast to see our books as staff picks on the west coast. Which reminds me that The Winged Histories is also a staff pick at BookPeople in Austin, yay!

The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar
“You can always trust Small Beer Press to bring you the beautiful and the strange. In The Winged Histories, four women (a solider, a scholar, a poet, and a socialite) relate their experiences of a shattering rebellion and its aftermath. Far from linear, each woman’s narrative plumbs the depths of their individual and cultural memories; and surprisingly the ending — where Samatar ties off a wonderful multitude of threads — was so brilliant, such a dark surprise, it was nearly my favorite part. One of the best things about The Winged Histories (and its stunning prequel, A Stranger in Olondria) is its fierce lyricism and the depths of Samatar’s worldbuilding. Every character is a believable expression not only of individual traits but of the invented historical texts, whole schools of literature, arguments between translators, oral traditions, and the fragments of bestiaries of the literature-sodden world of Olondria. Every page is worth your time.”

The Entropy of Bones by Ayize Jama-Everett
“Ayize Jama-Everett’s Entropy of Bones is a very exciting book! Chabi is unlike most young women — but that’s as far as Jama-Everett takes this trope before thankfully inverting it on its head. Chabi is black-Mongolian, and comes from part of the Bay Area solidly ignored if not harmed by that area’s rapid gentrification. She’s ready to start earning money as a bodyguard, providing for herself and her estranged alcoholic mother. But then her mentor disappears, and she realizes that without her knowledge (and certainly her consent) he has transformed her into an unwilling champion in an ages-old supernatural battle. There are taut action sequences and moral conflicts, but Chabi’s tough, wise, and funny character holds every strange, fascinating bit together. Her story is rooted solidly in our own world, from aspiring young DJs to pot-growing cottage industrialists, but the behind-the-curtain world of elemental good and evil Jama-Everett creates feels tantalizingly real.”

And then the third pick is a book on my TBR pile, useful!

Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns
“This beautiful book, the story of an impoverished, naive young artist in 1930s London, totally took me by surprise. At first the mishaps of newly-married Sophia and her husband Charles are funny and awkward — everything Sophia cooks tastes like soap; they paint all of their furniture sea-green; they live in terror of Charles’ forbidding relatives; and they’re always hard up for money. But through a masterful technique of Comyns, Sophia’s wondering attitude slowly reveals as much about her (and her unconscious attempts to deflect the emotional impact of constant disappointments) as it does those around her, who benefit from exploiting her optimism and self-doubt. Some moments of the book approach psychological horror, and the happy ones (they exist!) come as a great relief.”


Congrats to Norton finalist Nicole Kornher-Stace!

Tue 23 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Just in case there’s the tiniest chance you missed it, we at Big Mouth House — our imprint for readers of all ages — are once again celebrating Nicole Kornher-Stace’s debut YA novel Archivist Wasp which this weekend was announced as one of a very strong list of finalists for the Norton Award. Archivist hit a few Best of the Year lists, including YALSA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults, Kirkus Reviews, Book Riot, Buzzfeed, and the Locus Recommended Reading list and is well into its second printing. It’s looking like a third printing will be called for soon — woohoo!

If you’re curious, you can start reading here.


Mary Rickert at Boswell’s Books, Milwaukee

Mon 22 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

We’re very happy that not this Wednesday but the one after that (which would be March 2nd), Mary Rickert will be reading at the excellent Boswell Book Co. in Milwaukee, MN.

This is also a great opportunity to order signed or personalized copies of her new collection You Have Never Been Here —  you can see they have 24 copies in stock and with luck by March 3rd, there will be none left!

Boswell Book Co.
2559 N. Downer Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53211
info@boswellbooks.com
(414) 332-1181


2015 Locus Recommended Reading List

Fri 19 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Congratulations to all the writers whose work was selected for the 2015 Locus Recommended Reading List. It is always an interesting list; fascinating to see what makes the list, what does not. In 2015, not counting reprints and two issues of LCRW, we apparently published:

— two novels by Ayize Jama-Everett, The Liminal War and The Entropy of Bones
— one translation: Angélica Gorodischer’s Prodigies (translated by Sue Burke)
— one young adult novel: Nicole Kornher-Stace’s Archivist Wasp
— one short story collection, Mary Rickert’s You Have Never Been Here
— two paperback reprints: Geoff Ryman’s Was and Greer Gilman’s Cloud & Ashes
— which constitutes a recommended reading list all of our own!

Of those five new titles, we are very happy to say four were selected for the Recommended Reading List:

NOVELS – FANTASY
Prodigies, Angélica Gorodischer
The Liminal War, Ayize Jama-Everett
Archivist Wasp, Nicole Kornher-Stace

COLLECTIONS
You Have Never Been Here, Mary Rickert

I’m also very happy to see Kelly’s collection Get in Trouble and her story from Strange Horizons, “The Game of Smash and Recovery.”

No matter which books you liked or didn’t, I hope you’ll go and vote at the next election and keep democracy alive! And no matter if you do that or no, remember that the Locus poll is open, everyone can vote in it, and you can write in your own choices: Michael J. DeLuca for Editor!

2015 titles in order of publication:


Joan Aiken’s Puffin Passport

Thu 18 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Love this Puffin Passport (“Perused and pronounced a proper Puffin author”!) from Lizza Aiken’s rich Joan Aiken site. (Click to see it at a decent size there.)


Stories of Your Life and Knopf

Wed 17 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., | Posted by: Gavin

Stories of Your Life and Others cover - click to view full sizeGood news/bad news! I don’t know if you read Locus or Publishers Marketplace but if not I’m happy to pass on the news that Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life and Others plus his as-yet-untitled next book have been picked up by Random House. This might have something to do with the film of the title story which has wrapped filming and is scheduled to come out this summer. The Knopf edition can be preordered at all your fave indie bookstores and here.

I have a little bit of mixed feelings about this as it was pretty fabulous to have Ted’s book as part of our list but mostly I am very happy that Ted’s stories will have this great chance at a very wide readership.


Silicon Valley Reads!

Tue 16 Feb 2016 - Filed under: Not a Journal., , | Posted by: Gavin

Sherwood Nation cover - click to view full sizeBen Parzybok returns today to Silicon Valley for the Silicon Valley Reads Program, where all Silicon Valley is reading a couple of water-themed novels: Sherwood Nation and Emmi Itäranta’s Memory of Water. There are tons of events in high schools (not listed) and libraries, listed below:

January 26 –  Silicon Valley Reads Kick-off – Heritage Theater  – Emmi Itäranta, author of Memory of Water, and Benjamin Parzybok, author of Sherwood Nation, are interviewed on stage by Mercury News columnist Sal Pizarro.  Co-sponsored by Commonwealth Club Silicon Valley. [Listen to this on the Commonwealth Club podcast.]

February 16 –  Santa Clara University, Learning Commons, St. Clare Room – 4pm – interviewed by SCU faculty member John Farnsworth, followed by audience Q&A and book signing.

February 17 –  West Valley College, Campus Center, The Baltic Room – 12:30pm

February 17 –  Milpitas Library – 7pm

February 18 –  Los Altos Library – 7pm

February 19 –  Berryessa Branch Library – 1pm

February 20 –  Evergreen Branch Library – 1pm

February 20 –  Santa Teresa Branch Library – 3pm

March 7 –  The Tech Museum – 6 – 7:30pm: “Could it happen here?” Panel: Discussing “Could It Happen Here” with author Parzybok are panelists:
• Dr. Brian Green, Assistant Director, Campus Ethics, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and Assistant Director of Engineering, Santa Clara University
• Jim Fiedler, Chief Operating Officer, Water Utility, Santa Clara Valley Water District
• Additional panelists to be announced
Moderated by Barbara Marshman, Editorial Page Editor, Mercury News.

March 8 – Santa Clara County Office of Education – 10 – 11:30 –  “Chance of Rain: The impact of climate change in our lives”  followed by a signing until 11:30 a.m. Books will be available for purchase.

March 8 – West Valley Branch Library – 4pm

March 8 –  Morgan Hill Library – 7pm

March 9 – Pearl Avenue Branch Library – 5:30pm

March 10 –  Evergreen Valley College, Montgomery Hall – 2pm

March 10 –  Tully Community Branch Library – 5:30pm

March 19 –  Willow Glen Branch Library – 2pm

March 20  –  Cupertino Community Hall – 1-3pm at   Cupertino Community Hall.  Closing Event of Silicon Valley Reads 2016! – Authors Emmi Itäranta and Benjamin Parzybok discuss their books and the Silicon Valley Reads experience with Nancy Howe, Santa Clara County Librarian and co-chair of Silicon Valley Reads.   Co-sponsored by the Cupertino Library Foundation.

Silicon Valley Reads 2016


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